Excellent ride yesterday, couple new PRs.

For yesterday’s ride I decided to go solo, and I rode north on Highway 19 into the Ocala National Forest. Highway 19 is one of my favorite stretches of road: the road surface is generally very good, the traffic is fairly light, there is a nice wide shoulder and it’s quite scenic–especially as you get into the forest. Also, once you get past Altoona/Highway 42, there are no traffic lights or stop signs for many, many miles.

Here’s Highway 19 winding through the Ocala National Forest (image is from Google Street View, click to enlarge):

One of my favorite stretches of road: Highway 19 north of Altoona.

I started my ride a few miles south of the small town of Umatilla. After a brief 6.5 kilometer (4 mile) warm-up, I decided to spend the first part of my ride doing a ~21 kilometer (a little over 13 miles) time trial. I knew I’d have a couple traffic lights to contend with as I passed through Umatilla, but after that (and a single light in Altoona) it was nothing but unbroken highway for the rest of the 21 kilometers.

I felt good while I was riding, and thought there was a better than average chance I’d set a new power PR or two. My average speed was 24.3 mi/h (39.11 km/h), my average heart rate was 180 BPM, my average power was 287 watts and my average cadence was 103 RPM (click to enlarge):

Data from the TT section of yesterday’s 71 kilometer/44 mile ride.

You can see where I had to slow for a couple of traffic lights, as those are the only two places where my cadence drops below 100. 🙂

So that was about a 33 minute effort, and my best 30 minute average power swatch from that effort was 286 watts–one stinking watt short of my current 30 minute power PR of 287 watts! Grrrrr.

After the TT effort, I turned onto 445A, and spun out the lactic acid for a bit. I probably should have turned around and went back the way I came, but I decided to head south on County Road 445…

CR 445 is a mixed bag: it’s VERY remote, and very scenic. For those reasons, I love it. The problem is the road surface is absolutely HORRIBLE for cyclists. Most of its 10 miles (16 kilometers) is extremely rough chipseal. The rough road surface kills the pace, and the nonstop vibrations take their toll as the miles wear on. Towards the southern end of 445 the road surface mercifully switches to smooth blacktop, and when I hit it I let out a sigh of relief. My hands were numb, and my average speed had dropped all the way down to 22 mi/h (35.41 km/h).

After I turned off of 445 and back onto 19, I eased up somewhat for the 10 mile return leg. Here’s the complete ride on Strava with all data.

I’m bummed that I missed my 30 minute power PR, but I did set a couple of new personal record for time out there yesterday. It was a solid ride, and I felt pretty good.

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